No. Fuck oil. I need someone to teach me how to use it.
Work VERY THIN, block in underlays and then gradually build up to thicker paint. I think they are great, but unless you have the right facilities (like a proper studio) then its a bitch. It's slower, smellier and messy. At least with acrylics you can work fast.
There's plenty of ways to handle oil paint. If you don't have the patience to let it dry, you don't have to work in layers like this.
I prefer to work thick. The tactile sensation of really pushing the paint around is what I like about working in oil.
Yeah, see, I'm not sure I can handle doing a layer of thin paint then waiting a few days before I can work on it again without smooshing everything to a muddy gray. I just don't have the patience.
Yeah, see, I'm not sure I can handle doing a layer of thin paint then waiting a few days before I can work on it again without smooshing everything to a muddy gray. I just don't have the patience.
When designing characters for something like a webcomic, simplicity and difficulty are really important
do you really want to redraw that tentacle, complete with suction cups et al a jillion times? Will they be easily recognizable next to other characters? Right now your design is pretty cookie cutter sci fi lookin dude, and also you know if you want people to actually read your webcomic it will take a lot of work and man,
you have to actually want to devote time to it.
You make a good point, RubberAC. I can see where you're coming from with the cookie cutter design on mine. As for the detail, I couldn't disagree with you more. For one, this is an extremely simplified style I employ when I feel like working fast. Normally, I am much, much more detailed and precise. Both of those characters combined maybe took me twenty to twenty five minutes. Not long at all, considering how I might spend two to three hours on a duo of character normally. The tentacle wasn't really hard, nor annoying. It just looks like it because the suction cups give it a lot of form.
And really, like you said, you have to want to devote time to it. One of my favorite artists is Kentaro Miura. He draws the comic Berserk, which if you haven't read, is insanely detailed. All black and white. None of his character designs are very simplified at all. And yes, he doesn't push out volume like mainstream graphic novels, but damn, they look good. And he has a strong fanbase for that. There is no such thing as too detailed, as long as you can handle it. And I think I can.
I have to agree with Rubber here, though. Even if you wanted to draw that thing all the time, the alien character just doesn't work the way I think you want it too. That is to say it doesn't work.
pic im working on for a mod team. its a promo poster which will be pinned up around our booth at Adelaides Avcon. trying to get the composition looking interesting. crits?
I'm not sure if the door is shaped like a trapezium, if it's tilted backwards or it's using extreme perspective. Also, the rafters on the sides don't seem to lead anywhere.
I must say though, your enviros are certainly improving WCK.
I'd try making that horizontal camera-tilt less extreme, maybe half the angle you have now. Put a figure right at the foot of the door if you want to really get some scale going. Remember that the lines/detail on those rathers should recede/shrink at the same rate that your other figures do -- right now they actually make the door look kinda ordinary because the details closest to the door aren't much smaller than those very close to the camera.
I may be alone on this, but early Metzen work seems like it comes from a guy who isn't a professional, but is pretty good and is super enthusiastic.
Of course, that could be the truth.
Yeah, I remember feeling exactly this way looking through the Warcraft 1 & 2 manuals: "this is a professional artist?"
Ironically, that may have been one of the things that kept me drawing, since it seemed so achievable.
Just want to chime in the echo chamber here
Metzen looked like someone brought his fairly talented, untrained teenaged son in to do some work. My first exposure was in the Starcraft manuals and I first wondered why Samwise's quality varied so much, but then I noticed the signatures.
e: although, one of them has right hand drive, the other has left hand drive.
Lets just assume the guy giving the finger is the drivers mate That or he's driving a badass 1980s pontiac
ALSO - Just for the hell of it. Heres my image (minor edit) with grid. Im shite at 3 point so im probably waaaaay off. but im sure you guys can see where the horizon is supposed tobe.
I had to paint over to demonstrate. Took me about 15 mins, apologies if this oversteps. I just think you could push the lighting/narrative and perspective, this is kind of what i meant in the description above.
edit:
Also you should know this isn't 3-point perspective, it's almost entirely 1 point perspective, except for your big door which is trying to demonstrate its massiveness by pulling toward a second perspective point. It doesn't really work though, because all your other figures aren't being drawn toward the same point. So, really, it sort of just looks like a weirdly shaped door. I didn't want to change that, but it might be worth considering which direction you're going to go in.
Vertical perspective points aren't often use in scenes where the focus is on the horizon, because in every day life we'd only really notice that kind of thing if we were looking up. It's hard to look up AND at the horizon at the same time. So most of your vertical lines would be straight up and down.
ALSO wanted to say that some of the lines you make when you're trying to do perspective stuff sometimes feel VERY counter-intuitive. Like the upmost lines of those rafter things I added are at a very oblique angle which felt really unnatural to draw. I get this crawling feeling sometimes when I do this stuff because it FEELS wrong. Try experimenting with more extreme lines and see what happens.
Actually, here's with the straight door. I don't think it's an improvement, i like the original shape, but it makes more visual sense. Maybe try your door shape, but without fucking around with that second perspective point.
I may be alone on this, but early Metzen work seems like it comes from a guy who isn't a professional, but is pretty good and is super enthusiastic.
Of course, that could be the truth.
And you'd be right. Metzen was primarily Blizzard's story writer (he wrote all those backstory things in the manuals) and just happened to be handy with a pencil as well. IIRC, he currently holds the title of "lore master" and is responsible for all the gobbledegook that goes on within the warcraft and starcraft universes.
Man what the fuck are you guys blabbering about. Metzen is my favorite Blizzard artist! NO SAD FACE! HAPPY FACE! It's a compliment! I find a lot more feeling and passion behind Metzen's art than I do Samwise's.
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Very nice Moss
There's plenty of ways to handle oil paint. If you don't have the patience to let it dry, you don't have to work in layers like this.
I prefer to work thick. The tactile sensation of really pushing the paint around is what I like about working in oil.
Learn to work alla prima.
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I have to agree with Rubber here, though. Even if you wanted to draw that thing all the time, the alien character just doesn't work the way I think you want it too. That is to say it doesn't work.
Scriboodle!:
Front:
Back: (spoilered for bigness)
INSTAGRAM
Oops, I forgot I was suppose to draw them like everyone else. (But I agree...)
revision:
Of course, that could be the truth.
Yeah, I remember feeling exactly this way looking through the Warcraft 1 & 2 manuals: "this is a professional artist?"
Ironically, that may have been one of the things that kept me drawing, since it seemed so achievable.
I must say though, your enviros are certainly improving WCK.
I'd try making that horizontal camera-tilt less extreme, maybe half the angle you have now. Put a figure right at the foot of the door if you want to really get some scale going. Remember that the lines/detail on those rathers should recede/shrink at the same rate that your other figures do -- right now they actually make the door look kinda ordinary because the details closest to the door aren't much smaller than those very close to the camera.
Just want to chime in the echo chamber here
Metzen looked like someone brought his fairly talented, untrained teenaged son in to do some work. My first exposure was in the Starcraft manuals and I first wondered why Samwise's quality varied so much, but then I noticed the signatures.
heres a sketch i did tonight during letterman.
e: although, one of them has right hand drive, the other has left hand drive.
Lets just assume the guy giving the finger is the drivers mate
ALSO - Just for the hell of it. Heres my image (minor edit) with grid. Im shite at 3 point so im probably waaaaay off. but im sure you guys can see where the horizon is supposed tobe.
I had to paint over to demonstrate. Took me about 15 mins, apologies if this oversteps. I just think you could push the lighting/narrative and perspective, this is kind of what i meant in the description above.
edit:
Also you should know this isn't 3-point perspective, it's almost entirely 1 point perspective, except for your big door which is trying to demonstrate its massiveness by pulling toward a second perspective point. It doesn't really work though, because all your other figures aren't being drawn toward the same point. So, really, it sort of just looks like a weirdly shaped door. I didn't want to change that, but it might be worth considering which direction you're going to go in.
Vertical perspective points aren't often use in scenes where the focus is on the horizon, because in every day life we'd only really notice that kind of thing if we were looking up. It's hard to look up AND at the horizon at the same time. So most of your vertical lines would be straight up and down.
ALSO wanted to say that some of the lines you make when you're trying to do perspective stuff sometimes feel VERY counter-intuitive. Like the upmost lines of those rafter things I added are at a very oblique angle which felt really unnatural to draw. I get this crawling feeling sometimes when I do this stuff because it FEELS wrong. Try experimenting with more extreme lines and see what happens.
Actually, here's with the straight door. I don't think it's an improvement, i like the original shape, but it makes more visual sense. Maybe try your door shape, but without fucking around with that second perspective point.
And you'd be right. Metzen was primarily Blizzard's story writer (he wrote all those backstory things in the manuals) and just happened to be handy with a pencil as well. IIRC, he currently holds the title of "lore master" and is responsible for all the gobbledegook that goes on within the warcraft and starcraft universes.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/iambogdan/IG%20vs%20Tau/WarCraft_Metzen008b.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/iambogdan/IG%20vs%20Tau/StarCraft_Metzen001b.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/iambogdan/IG%20vs%20Tau/Personal_Metzen016b.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/iambogdan/IG%20vs%20Tau/WarCraft_Metzen037b.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/iambogdan/IG%20vs%20Tau/WarCraft_Metzen010b.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v453/iambogdan/IG%20vs%20Tau/Diablo_Metzen001b.jpg
Even if he lacked the polish of better artists, he clearly had a vision and a style that he adhered to (a sort of noir fantasy).
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